EU free movement

Torrin Wilkins
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

During the referendum there were two arguments on immigration that I heard non-stop. The leave argument was about control over immigration so we could reduce the number of people entering the UK. The remain argument is that UK citizens benefit from EU free movement. For me the leave argument carried no weight because I have no real urge to lower the number of people allowed to enter the UK. Immigration is a positive economically for the UK so for me the current levels of immigration aren’t too high.

For anyone worried about immigration we can remove anyone who comes to the UK and doesn’t find work within six months so unemployed people staying in the UK was more of an issue with the UK government. As for EU workers undercutting UK workers there seems to be little evidence of this. These two arguments were also quite bizarre. Somehow EU immigrants were simultaneously unemployed people reliant on benefits while also stealing our jobs.

The situation with the EU is a case for me of disparity. If I am a citizen of a non-EU country then to come to the UK I have to go through a points based system but if I am coming to the UK from an EU country then I come to the UK through free movement of people. There are two arguments given to counter this by the remain campaign.

The first answer is that the EU doesn’t stop us from giving every country total free movement to the UK. This argument falls down because I firstly don’t see full free movement as either politically possible or even desirable. This means they are essentially saying that either you live with an unfair system or you have to go for a fair alternative but with a policy you don’t actually want. The best option here is to end free movement because it both allows us to have a fair system but one of our choice.

The second answer is that the system is actually fair because both the UK and the EU give each other free movement to one another. This firstly doesn’t change the fact that its unfair on non-EU nations to give other countries advantages the others don’t have. Inside the UK we of-course allow free moment between the internal countries but you need to have a political starting bloc and unless we have a world state then we end up with external border controls and internal free movement. While you need internal free movement and there is no real choice over having this external free movement of people is an agreement which we are free to change and I for one think it should be scrapped.

So now I have laid out why I think it should go we need to replace it with something. A system that tries to give countries immigration quotas due to their size may be very difficult when it comes to smaller countries so a universal points based system that looks at people by the skills they can bring to the UK will probably be best. It doesn't just look at people’s nationality, just their skills.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36449974

Torrin Wilkins

Director of the Centre Think Tank, Chair of Liberal Leave and studies politics at Aberystwyth University.

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